Won’t somebody please think of the children?

I’m on a roll today…

Now, I’m no gamer – on the rare occasions that I play a computer game, it is invariably a quick blast on some crusty retro classic. However, I do have an appreciation for the medium and believe it should be accorded the same respect as other forms of entertainment, hence this post.

A little background to begin with. In the mid nineties, Australia introduced a mandatory and legally binding age classification system for computer and video games, broadly similar to the one already existing for films and video recordings. However, there was one important difference. Unlike films, for which the highest rating available is the R18+ classification, the highest possible rating for games was capped at MA15+. As a result, to this day, any game deemed unsuitable for a 15-year-old can not be legally sold to anyone, adults included. This restriction is in stark contradiction to one of the principles that supposedly guides Australian censorship decisions, namely that, to the greatest degree possible, adults should be able to see what they wish.

How did this slightly ludicrous state of affairs arise? The primary justification offered at the time was that interactive entertainment *might* have a more profound impact on the participant than passive entertainment. However, the report “Computer Games and Australians Today”, commissioned by Parliament in 1999, found no evidence that this is the case. The motivation for basing censorship legislation upon this unsubstantiated premise was largely the fact that, at the time, the balance of power in the Australian Senate was held by Brian Harradine, a deeply religious independent senator who, as it happened, was also a stalwart of the Senate Select Committee on Community Standards and notoriously pro-censorship. His favour was no doubt viewed by the Government as a prerequisite for carrying out their legislative agenda.

Now, at last, the reform of this absurd regime is on the agenda. The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General is to discuss the possibility of introducing an R18+ rating when it meets this month. There is, however, a fly in the ointment. The Attorney-General of South Australia, Michael Atkinson, has already publicly stated that he is opposed to the proposal. Unfortunately, standing practice is that unanimity is required among Attorneys-General for legislative change to occur.

Disturbingly, according to one of Michael Atkinson’s spokespeople, his perception of the type of material that would be accommodated under the proposed R-rating for games is of “computer-generated pornography and depictions of extreme violence“. This is absolute nonsense and I can only hope that he has been misquoted. As Atkinson is surely well aware, the criteria for the games rating would be exactly the same as that applying to the R-rating for films, under which pornography and extreme violence are expressly excluded. Indeed, under the present guidelines, if a game were to contain content of an equivalent impact to that of a classic R-rated film such as, say, The Godfather, A Clockwork Orange, or Apocalypse Now, it would be banned in Australia.

Will Atkinson be successful in sabotaging this much-needed reform? Or will the adult gamers of Australia finally stop being treated like children? We shall soon know.

Viral ignorance

The inaugural (proper) post. Huzzah.

You have probably heard about a rather nasty chain email entitled “Australian Apology to the Aboriginal Population”. You may have even been unfortunate enough to have received it from one of the less enlightened contacts in your address book. As a matter of principle I will not reproduce the text here, but if you haven’t seen it, it can be readily located by means of a Google search. The email first appeared when the “Bringing Them Home” report was released, and unsurprisingly has reared its ugly head once more following the real Apology of the 13th of February.

I was anticipating receiving the email from one person in particular, and sure enough, it arrived in my inbox last week. I toyed with the idea of responding with a rebuttal of the “points” it raised, but as he had rather foolishly sent it via his work email (which I believe is his only account), I decided against it, as doing so could further increase his risk of detection and its associated consequences.

There are a few things that particularly strike me in regard to the content of this email. For example, it is obviously blatantly eurocentric in tone, and it blithely ignores the reality that the removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities persisted until the early seventies, and the legacy of this persists to this day.

The main problem though, is this: The claims it makes are an unmitigated load of bollocks.

Contrary to the claims made in this email, Aborigines do not get free travel, free weddings, or free loans. Their car loans are not paid off for them in the event that they default on the payments – this myth has been doing the rounds since at least the mid-eighties, but it is no more true now than it was then. There is no anthropological evidence that any Indigenous peoples were ever cannibals. And unsurprisingly, though more than a few people seem to be incapable of grasping this, the majority of Indigenous people traditionally lived in fertile coastal regions. Not out in the desert.

Is the depth of ignorance among those distributing this email genuinely this profound? Or are they simply trying to justify their own prejudices?

And I am…?

Hiya.

This is the latest in a string of god knows how many presences I’ve had on the InfoTubes over the years.

Hopefully this time my efforts will not be taken over by either apathy or by a paranoia that I have revealed too much of myself..

I expect that the blog will for the most part consist of my perspectives on various sociopolitical issues…Perhaps the odd album or film review…I doubt that I will ever end up boring you with mundane personal affairs, as it is tiresome enough merely to have to experience them, let alone recount them…

As I struggle to pour my ideas out, my syntax will likely show a marked convolutedness. Retrospective edits to clarify myself are to be expected.

Right, let’s go.